


Xenial

by okapi



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angst and Feels, Community: 1_million_words, M/M, Mental Instability, Sad Ending, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 01:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7824667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is a stranger in need of a place to rest. John is a hospitable recluse. Both lives are changed with a knock on the door.</p><p>LJ 1_million_words Weekend challenge prompt: xenial, which means 'of, relating to, or constituting hospitality or relations between host and guest.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Xenial

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Гостеприимство, или об отношениях между хозяином и гостем (Xenial).](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12094884) by [Merla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merla/pseuds/Merla)



The three colours of mud on Sherlock’s boots told of the length and danger of his journey. The dark brown stain that stretched from knee to mid-thigh, however, was nothing more than a taunt.

He had stumbled.

Sherlock never stumbled.

It a warning, that cold, wet patch. His body was beginning to fail, and fail him. To surrender to its own petty needs.

He had to stop.

Where?

It was not in his nature to beg. Or to steal, for that matter. But rest and food must be had. And soon.

He passed through the quiet hamlet quietly, his steps lit, if not buttressed or steadied, by the glow of a full moon.

He spied a cottage in the distance.

A candle burned in the window.

Strange, at this hour.

Road became path. Sherlock drew nearer. Behind the cottage was a stable.

A place to rest.

Sherlock stifled a yawn, then a curse.

To approach a stranger’s horse in the middle of the night, if only to be its bedmate, was suicide, the foolish kind. Sherlock studied the environs for signs of a feminine presence.

None.

A bachelor’s cottage.

Ideal.

The inhabitants of these parts were well-known for their hospitality.

Sherlock’s body stirred at the thought of a pinch of tobacco. He silenced it.

_Knock, knock._

Shuffling. Grunts. The tap of a stick. No, crutch.

An old bachelor, then.  

“State your purpose!”

No, not so old and, most certainly, accustomed to uniform.

“I am Stranger. I bid use of your stable to rest until down. I offer…”

Even without the autumnal chill, Sherlock would have been loathe to part with his cloak.

“…my boots as guarantee.”

The door cracked.

“Stranger.”

Sherlock could not readily say if the coarseness in the man’s voice was from illness or disuse, but it occurred to him that a display of gentility and deference might soften someone used to codes of conduct and chains of command.

“At your service.”

Sherlock bowed his head, removing his hat, as he kneeled. A second mud-stain bled through the first.

“John. At yours. Come in.”

* * *

The room was austere, but filled with warmth from a woodstove.

“Stranger, those boots are not worth two fleas on my horse’s rump, but give them to me, nonetheless, and dry your feet.”

One table. One chair.

After a wave from his host, Sherlock lowered himself into the latter. He concentrated on his breath, exhaling with a measured release that in no way resembled a sigh of relief.

The man named John tottered about the room, hanging Sherlock’s cloak on a hook, setting Sherlock’s boots outside the back door, fussing about with a pair of pots atop of the stove.

“Hungry?”

A twisted growl belied Sherlock’s carefully-crafted shrug. He winced.

By way of reply, John made a noise. A laugh? His words were clearer.

“Our bodies betray us, no?”

Sherlock nodded and studied the crutch beneath John’s arm. A pair of sticks were also scattered about the room. The man was thin as a rathe, but his newly-notched belt and loose-hanging clothing said he had not always been so.

“There’s stew,” said John.                                                    

And tobacco. And whisky, thought Sherlock. Tearing his gaze from the items on the shelf produced a pang, which Sherlock thought he had hidden until John’s grunt.

“First tea.”

* * *

“Thank you,” said Sherlock, accepting the steaming mug.

John raised a hand, then disappeared out the back door of the cottage. He returned lugging a tree stump under one arm.

Sherlock rose at once.

“It’s fine. Fine,” muttered John, but he accepted Sherlock’s assistance in getting him securely, if not comfortably, perched on the makeshift stool, but he must not have been too uncomfortable for he sighed, long and loud.

“Your journey is a quest, no?”

Sherlock nodded.

“Tell me.”

* * *

One bowl. One spoon.

John ate directly from the pot with the ladle he’d used to proportion Sherlock’s generous serving.

“Three dead. Hunted?”

“Yes. Now a fourth. With a note. I’ve finally been summoned to aid.”

“Extraordinary. You, your tale, everything but those boots.” John smiled, and Sherlock saw, for a mere instant, the gallant soldier. “And you’ve been journeying on foot all this time?”

Sherlock shrugged. “Mostly. I’d plan to arrive by tonight, but the bridge…”

“Ah. You’d not heard of the flooding?”

Sherlock shook his head.

John leaned on a stick and pushed awkwardly to his feet. He reached for a pouch and tossed it at Sherlock’s lap.

“Smoke. I’ll see to ‘em,” he said, nodding to the back door.

Sherlock finished the stew, then lit his pipe to the sound of bristles on leather outside.

Was there more hospitable a person on earth that this John? Sherlock searched again and again for ulterior motives or deceit in the man, but found none.

He was a dream, and this place, this bare cottage, an oasis.

* * *

 

 

“Now. Another story,” said John. The whiskey was between them. And it seemed the most natural thing in the world to share the one glass, to speak while the other drank, to drink while the other spoke.

And the spirit loosened John’s tongue. He exchanged every story of Sherlock’s for one of his own from the army. And the smoke and the warmth and the full belly and the… _John_ …seemed to unearth whatever sense of, if not humour, then at least amusement, Sherlock had long ago buried.

He laughed, more than once, at John's stories.

“So you’re a pattern-finder, puzzle-solver, problem-fixer?” asked John.

“Problem-fetcher, most say.”

“It’s brilliant, whatever it’s called. It’s how you knew about my army service? And my wounds?”

“And that you once dabbled in the healing arts,” said Sherlock, gesturing to the herb-filled jars and pouches gathering mould and dust on a shelf.

“My quest,” said John. “For peace. For relief from pain and torment.”

“The candle,” said Sherlock.

“I don’t sleep. When I close my eyes, I see them, the dying, the dead, all the boys I could not save, in pieces. Sometimes I see them when I’m not asleep.”

“Demons take many forms, but so do remedies.”

“I gave up my quest. Right before I returned here, a nurse gifted me this.” John struggled to his feet and hobbled to the bed in the far corner. “She said it would ease my suffering to record my acts, my thoughts, even my hellish dreams.” He returned with a leather book, which he turned the book towards Sherlock.

Four words decorated an otherwise blank page.

**Porridge.**

**Chopped wood.**

**Stew.**

John flipped the page.

**Porridge.**

**Stew.**

He flipped another and another and another.

**Porridge.**

**Porridge.**

**Porridge.**

“At least breakfast isn’t a mystery,” said Sherlock dryly.

John laughed and returned the book to the bedside table.

Sherlock felt his eyelids droop, his back slump. He righted himself, but not soon enough.

“Bedtime,” said John, nodding to the corner.

“No,” said Sherlock firmly. This was xenial to the point of mad _._ “I shan’t displace you from comfortable sleep.”

“Who said anything about displacing me?”

John grinned, and no amount of silent admonishment or internal control could stop Sherlock’s reaction.

He blushed.

“You are far too fatigued, and I am far too crippled, to make designs on virtue, even it was wished,” said John.

“It is wished,” whispered Sherlock, surprising even himself.  

John’s tone was wistful. “By me as well.”

* * *

Sherlock settled into the bed.

A puff of breath. A whiff of smoke. John’s shuffling in dark silence.

“I suppose I’ll have something to write in my diary tomorrow,” said John as he joined Sherlock. Sherlock immediately rolled onto his side, affording John as much space as the narrow bed permitted. When John had finally arranged his limbs to his own satisfaction, he spoke.

“I’ve been thinking. I want you to take Browning.”

Sherlock inhaled sharply, then exhaled a remonstrance. “No! It’s absurd!”

“I am to sell him. Every day it requires a greater portion of my army pension to keep him well-fed and cared for, and frankly, he is idle to the point of illness. I cannot ride him, and it is selfish and short-sighted to withhold the great pleasure from another. With him, you will make up the time that you lost tonight.”

John was right, but, once again, Sherlock felt the thin veil of illusion quiver. No one was this kind.

“But John…”

“Use yellow apples from the orchard to win his favour. Take him, please. He deserves to be part of a tale as grand as yours. And he will play his part well. He will merit every accolade.”

As do you, thought Sherlock, but he said, “I will return him on the next full moon, better than he is tonight, and repay your kindness, with interest, and…”

John put a finger to Sherlock’s lips. “Just come back and tell me the story.”

Sherlock pushed John’s hand away and kissed him. “By the next full moon. I promise.”

John hummed.

“When I return, John…”

“Yes.”

“We will break this bed.”

John giggled.

“And refashion ourselves a larger one,” continued Sherlock.

“And break it?”

“In time.”

They stared at each other. Finally, John whispered,

“You will take me?”

“Every way you desire. And be taken, I hope?”

“Every way this broken body affords; I’d be a poor host if I didn’t oblige my guest.”

“Not host, not guest. Just us, John.”

John kissed him. “Yes. Full moon?”

“Promise. No later.”

Then Sherlock tucked himself by John’s side and surrendered to his body’s clamour for sleep.

* * *

Sherlock dressed quietly. He’d been more careful than he need have been, however. Rain on the cottage roof drowned what little noise he made.

He’d paused twice to stare at John’s sleeping form, and twice he’d had to restrain himself from shaking the man awake, asking, begging, forcing him to accompany him.

But there was the crutch. And the sticks. The man’s body was weak and his mind, Sherlock’s eyes went to the candle, had at least one fissure. But Sherlock would return soon, triumphant and remunerated, and then there would be time. And money.

Of the two, time was greater enemy. Sherlock was late.

He made for the door, then stopped.

The least he could do was to leave the place tidy. It was part of unspoken covenant between guest and host. John had been a consummate host. Sherlock could be no less as guest.

So he went to work.

It took only minutes to erase every splatter, every crumb. One glass. One bowl. One spoon. One bowl. All washed and returned to their proper places.

Sherlock retrieved John’s pencil from under the bed. He set it by the notebook and smiled.

John would have something to write today! And in one month’s time, there would be more and more and more until there was no time for writing.

Sherlock would see to that.

He left the cottage, closing the door behind him without a sound, noting that the rain had already washed away the three-coloured mud from his boots.

* * *

Sherlock didn’t need the crop, or any other implement, to urge his mount; Browning knew that they were close to home.

Did he also know that they were late? Probably. He was an astute animal.

Yes, they were late. Four days late, to be precise. It could not have been helped. Sherlock was not going to return to John empty-handed. He had had to wait for his reward.

And John would also wait. How could he not?

Where could he go? Sherlock had his horse.

And not just that.

Sherlock smiled.

He would surprise John. Gold coins were tucked in a pouch at his breast, jewels were in another pouch, carefully lodged inside him—they were compensation for John’s hospitality and tokens of Sherlock’s esteem and Sherlock would be filleted before he’d let any highway robber take them from him. Finally, there was a tale, a wondrous tale, in Sherlock’s mind.

It would be a sublime homecoming.

Sherlock chuckled. He was already thinking of the austere cottage as home.

* * *

Sherlock launched himself from the saddle and strode through the door. There was no candle in the window. Perhaps John had retired early. Perhaps his sleep had improved since…

“John?”

The smell hit Sherlock like a blow. His arm flew to cover his mouth and nose.

He turned.

“Oh, no, no, no…”

The skin was blistering. The bed was sodden.

Dead. Three days.

And Sherlock finally understood how ignorance could, in fact, be bliss.

One mug on the bedside table.

Sherlock took it up and sniffed.

“No, no, no…”

He grabbed the notebook and strode toward the window. He found candle and match, then began reading from the point where the litany of ‘Porridge. Porridge. Porridge.’ had turned to something more.

**_I had the most astonishing dream. Not of the war for once. I had nodded off by the stove, but woke at a knock at the door. It was a man who called himself Stranger. He wore mud-covered boots and a dark cloak. He knelt and said ‘At your service’…_ **

“Oh, no," Sherlock breathed and turned a page.

**_While recording my dream this morning, there was a loud crack. I rushed out to find the storm had sunk a limb in the roof of the stable. Browning was gone! I searched for him, even asked the village boy who brought my provisions later about him._**

**_Nothing._ **

**_In my dream, I gave him to Stranger for his quest. Could the dream be real? No, when I woke, there was not a single trace of anyone having been in the cottage but me._**

**_But if the Stranger is not dream. And he is not truth. What remains?_ **

**_Madness._ **

**_I am more worried ever that I have crossed that long-feared bridge and that now find myself citizen of some foreign land where I cannot tell the waking from the sleeping and the real from the shadow on the floorboard. I’ve seen too many soldiers survive the horrors of battle only to be lost in the fogs of their own minds’ creating. So it must be with me. But…_ **

**_Stranger promised to return by the next full moon. I shall wait until then before despairing. And while I  wait, perhaps, spin some yarns like the ones he told me. He is such a character._**

** The Adventures of Stranger (and his trusty steed, Browning)  **

** Chapter 1 **

Sherlock skimmed page after page, chapter after chapter, and with a soft moan, skipped to the final entry.

**_Morning. I woke in my chair. No Stranger. It is certain that I am mad. But if there is any compassion in this existence, I will meet him, dark hair, grey eyes, a wizard’s brain in a cavalier’s form, when I shirk this tired, worn-out uniform._ **

_\---_

**_I can bear the burden of lunacy no more. I’ve readied the cottage. And prepared the tea._ **

_**JHW** _

Sherlock closed the book, then bent low and blew out the candle.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
